Active Outdoors: Winter’s grand finale!

BY TIM JONES | EASTERNSLOPES.COM

Even the groomed runs at Cranmore Mountain have been covered with powder following 3 march nor’easters. (Tim Jones/EasternSlopes.com photo)Cranmore Powder Glade. What was nearly bare ground on March 1, now has over 2 feet of snow! (Tim Jones/EasternSlopes.com photo)Quebec Cat Skiing. This photo was taken in Quebec last spring, but you can now go Cat skiing at Sugarloaf in Maine. No passport needed! (Tim Jones/EasternSlopes.com photo)

If you feel you sort of lost this winter, I can’t really blame you. What a long, strange trip it has been!

We had that cold snap in late December and January that made it hard for many people to get motivated to play outdoors (I did a lot of cross-country skiing and literally sweated through it).

We didn’t have a lot of early snow and what we did get didn’t last through an unusually long January thaw. Early February saw one good snowstorm – then that disappeared in day after day of unusually warm temps in one of the warmest Februaries on record. By the end of the month, much of New England was bleak, bare ground.

Then came March! Marvelous March! Much of New England has been blessed with snowstorm after snowstorm. If has made your life a bit complicated at home and work, that’s clearly a signal that you should be getting away to someplace where the snow is welcomed. There’s snow galore from the Litchfield Hills to the Crown of Maine. Might as well learn to love it!

I was out in the knee-deep powder the other morning at Cranmore Mountain Resort (www.cranmore.com) in North Conway, and saw a lot of people who are probably pretty good skiers on packed corduroy but who were working way too hard in even the 6 inches or so of new snow that fell after the trails had been groomed. Those same skiers will likely have a tough time with the slush bumps once all this snow starts to melt.

Whether you are an old hand at skiing or just getting started, this is a great time of year to take a ski lesson. The days are longer and generally brighter and warmer, making it easier to focus on the lesson. Whether you are after the adrenaline rush of downhilling, or the gentle endorphin high of cross-country, taking a lesson from a pro will help you enjoy the snow more.

It’s also a great time of year to strap on snowshoes and go exploring. A couple of weeks ago, my buddy David and I taught a class on advanced snowshoe techniques at the Vermont Outdoor Woman “Winter Doe Camp” (www.outdoorswoman.org). We didn’t have much snow to teach on, but, a few days later southern and central Vermont got buried (over 3 feet of snow in some places) and we heard from one of our students that she’d purchased a pair of backcountry snowshoes and was out looking for “steeps to climb and logs to cross.” Loved hearing that!

There’s going to be snow around for at least a couple of more weeks in most of New England, and a lot longer than that is some spots. Life isn’t a spectator sport. Get out and enjoy winter while you can.

DEEP IN THE WOODS: This is also the time of year when deep snow makes backcountry skiing possible. If you are looking for folks to get out in the woods with, I’d suggest you contact the Catamount Trail Association (https://catamounttrail.org) and sign up for their weekly backcountry newsletter (it’s free). Also, the New Hampshire Chapter of the AMC (www.amc-nh.org) has a very active Ski Committee with lots of backcountry trips coming up for skiers of all ability levels. Either of these two fine organizations will help you get the most out of this winter – and next.

SNOWCAT SKIING IN MAINE: Last year at this time, I was in Murdochville, Quebec enjoying some of the best powder skiing of my life with Auberge Chic Chac (http://www.chic-chac.ca/en/home/). They offer four different skiing options: you can earn your turns on almost-infinite ski terrain, you can ride the T-bars at Mont Miller and access some true backcountry, you can cat ski on Mont York (a snowcat drives you to the top of a slope and picks you up again at the bottom, repeat all day) or, if you are really flush, you can heli-ski. They ski well into May most years.

I really, really wanted to go back for more T-bar skiing at Mont Miller and especially more cat skiing on Mont York this year as these last three storms have dumped unbelievable amounts of snow up there, but I just can’t make it happen.

But there’s good news. On Friday, Sugarloaf in Maine (www.sugarloaf.com/catskiing) opened its new cat skiing operation on Burnt Mountain on more than 4 feet of new snow. I’m headed up there next week to check it out. Stay tuned!

ICE OUT: As fickle as this winter has been for snow lovers, it’s been even worse for ice fanatics. Ponds that would normally offer safe ice for snowmobiling have seen a number of machines fall through. The lake near my house, which has a popular snowmobile track across it, is now showing large stretches of open water where the ice should be a couple of feet thick.

Ditto for skating and ice fishing. If you must venture out on the ice anywhere, go carefully. At the very least, carry self-rescue gear and know how to use it. Remember, you don’t know that ice is safe until you’ve cut a hole in it and checked for yourself. And even then, you don’t know that it’s safe only a few feet away.

Having once fallen through thin ice in cold weather, I can tell you that once is more than enough. Be careful out there.

Tim Jones is executive editor of the online magazine EasternSlopes.com and writes about outdoor sports and travel. Email: timjones@easternslopes.com.